McGraw Hill Integrated II, 2012
MH
McGraw Hill Integrated II, 2012 View details
5. Angles of Elevation and Depression
Continue to next subchapter

Exercise 1 Page 665

Recall the definition of tangent.

≈ 27.5 ft

Practice makes perfect

We are given that Lenora wants to build a bike ramp, and we're asked to find the length of the base of this ramp. Let l represents this length. We will focus on the side wall, which is a right triangle.

Since we are given that the angle of elevation is 20^(∘), we can use one of the trigonometric ratios to evaluate the value of l. Let's recall that the tangent of ∠ A is the ratio of the leg opposite ∠ A to the leg adjacent ∠ A. Using this definition, we can create an equation for tan 20^(∘). tan 20^(∘)=10/l Let's solve the above equation.
tan 20^(∘)=10/l
ltan20^(∘)=10
l=10/tan 20^(∘)
l=27.47477...
l≈ 27.5
The length of the base of the ramp is approximately 27.5 feet.